Wilson Roland Garros Har Tru Clay Court Tennis Ball Case
About Rothenburg ob der Tauber
This walled town stands above the Tauber River in Franconia. It was a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, was taken during the Thirty Years’ War in 1631, and later became known for the unusually intact medieval street plan that survived alongside postwar repairs.
THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
A case of Wilson’s Roland-Garros clay court ball: 24 tins, 72 balls, ITF approved. Wilson has been the official ball of Roland-Garros since 2020, and this is the clay specification rather than an all-court ball in tournament livery.
Clay asks two things of a ball that other surfaces do not. It is damp for much of the season, and it is loose, so a ball is picking up moisture and fine grit on every bounce.
The felt here is specified to resist both: it takes on less water and less dirt, which is what keeps a clay ball light and fast rather than turning it into a heavy, dead one by the middle of a set.
Underneath the felt is a natural rubber core.
A case rather than a tin is a commitment to a season.
Seventy-two balls is the unit a coaching block, a ball machine hopper or a club’s league programme is planned around, and buying at that scale is what keeps the same ball in play from the first week to the last instead of changing whatever the shop had in stock.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber sits in the Franconian hills, where the clay season is short and bracketed by wet spring and wet autumn — precisely the conditions a moisture-resistant felt is specified for.
Specifications
| Type | Clay court tennis balls |
|---|---|
| Case quantity | 24 tins / 72 balls |
| Approvals | ITF approved |
| Core | Natural rubber |
| Felt | Resists moisture and dirt pick-up |
| Surface | Clay |
| Official ball of Roland-Garros since | 2020 |
| Brand | Wilson |
Clay-specific balls are worth buying as clay-specific balls: an all-court felt on a damp red court picks up what the surface gives it and plays heavy by the third game.
LET Wilson Roland Garros Har Tru Clay Court Tennis Ball Case SHOW YOU Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Ball: The Plönlein — from a dialect term meaning little square at the fountain, and I will not have that translated loosely. The yellow house at the junction dates from the thirteenth century. The thirteenth, not merely 'medieval', which tells you nothing at all. Two streets descend from it at different gradients — different, which is the entire point of the photograph — one to the Kobolzeller gate, the other to the Siebers tower, which belonged to the older inner ring of walls and was superseded when the circuit was extended. Nineteenth-century Romantic painters made it famous, then photography and film; it served as reference material for the Bavarian village in Walt Disney's Pinocchio.
Ball: About three and a half kilometres — and I dislike 'about' as much as any of you, but the circuit declines to give us a round number. Almost the whole of it walkable under cover. Oldest sections twelfth century, outer ring completed in the fourteenth as the town grew rich on trade. Now the essential point, stated correctly: the walls survive because the decline after the Thirty Years' War left Rothenburg too poor to modernise or demolish them. Air raids in March 1945 destroyed roughly forty percent of the old town, and long stretches of wall. John J. McCloy, the American assistant secretary of war, whose mother had described the town to him, intervened to prevent complete destruction. Donor plaques sit in the parapet.
Ball: Built between 1311 and 1484 — one hundred and seventy-three years, and yes, I did that in my head, and yes, I checked it. Lutheran since the town adopted the Reformation in 1544. The treasure is the Heilig-Blut-Altar, carved by Tilman Riemenschneider between 1501 and 1504 in unpainted limewood: the Last Supper at the precise moment Christ identifies his betrayer, with Judas placed at the centre. At the centre. That is a compositional decision, not an accident of arrangement. A rock-crystal capsule in the cross above is said to hold a drop of Christ's blood, which made this a pilgrimage stop on the route to Santiago. Friedrich Herlin's high altar of 1466 shows the church itself — evidence, not impression.
Ball: Two buildings, and people insist on calling them one. Gothic block of about 1250 with a sixty-metre tower; Renaissance front begun after the fire of 1501 and completed in 1578; arcade added 1681. Three dates, three campaigns, and I will not blur them. Opposite stands the Ratstrinkstube of 1446, its gable clock working mechanical figures that enact the Meistertrunk — mayor Georg Nusch supposedly saving the town in 1631 by draining a three-litre tankard at General Tilly's challenge. Now I must be exact: that story was invented for a play in 1881. Invented. It is nonetheless central to the town's identity and re-enacted every Whitsun in costume.
Jackson Phillips here. Owner of TTT. We are working hard every day to bring you the most useful product reviews in the business. Our goal is putting the right product in every hand. If you have time, shoot me an email at jacksonphillips@thetennistactician.com and tell me exactly what you think of your purchase. The more feedback we get, the better we can serve. Thank you for your patronage. And Burn, Laugh, and Learn.